


An Ode to Mnemosyne

by westwoodandridingcrops



Series: Arguments in the Alternative (Sheriarty AUs) [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: AU: retirement, Angst, M/M, Memory Loss, Retirement, Retirement!lock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-05
Updated: 2015-08-05
Packaged: 2018-04-13 03:07:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4505316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/westwoodandridingcrops/pseuds/westwoodandridingcrops
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So much of them, separately and together, was boundless. If Sherlock had ever cared enough, perhaps he’d have put it to words, but it would have been a fruitless endeavor. However would they understand? Jim had always agreed with him. Ordinary people always thought that love was ordered. "It was destiny,” or “written in the stars.” A kismet kiss between personality and timing. Jim had always muttered on about physics and the universe’s inevitable progression towards chaos whenever he was questioned about it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Ode to Mnemosyne

**Author's Note:**

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Sometimes reporters would make their way North through the craggy mountains and the valleys that sliced into the rock, bleeding heather and sage. They would follow the twisted, old cattle road until at last they came to The Manor. The weathered stone fit into the bleak rock of the hills and faded into a sky the weather had long since beaten. They were often shocked to find the interior of the building so well-appointed. The heavy oak door giving way to gleaming floors of the same, spread over with thick rugs, glittering in the light of the fires. The whole house smelled faintly of beeswax and lemon, and the otherwise stone walls were paneled in wood or hung with ornate tapestries. Sherlock had seen more than one set of eyebrows disappear into a fringe at the sight, and it always made him frustrated. It was obvious, as it almost always was. Of course Jim Moriarty was never going to settle for anything other than the best.

Jim had lived his life as an orphan who’d managed to claw his way from gutters while wiping his brow of its sweat—and yes, its blood. He had never again settled for less that the best once he had looked up and found himself instead a wealthy man at the center of things. The early days had been like that, like the eye of whirlwind. It was all Sherlock could do to keep his breath, then. Every day was another country, another city, another bed. And, it had suited them, suited them both so well. For the first time in his life, he couldn’t remember a single day of being so wretchedly bored he contemplated diving head first into the Thames. Jim was all-consuming, and Sherlock let himself be feasted upon, his own hungers satiated in the process.  

 

Sherlock ushers in the latest in this line of vultures, this one with a sweet face and softly colored clothing, and waves her forward in to the foyer. She is older than they usually were. Typically, he and Jim had to deal with bright twenty-somethings. This woman has crow’s feet, but lingers in that space somewhere between 30 and 45 which was indeterminate. Once she’s settled herself into the cushions of a comfortable chair, Sherlock does the same. He brings one knee across the other, silently cursing the arthritis that makes it stiff and stubborn. _It’s going to rain later. Jim should come inside or I’ll never hear the end of it._

She starts by asking the questions whose answers have been worn and worried smooth with repetition. She tucks a strand of light hair back behind her ear, and Sherlock nearly recoils at just how young she is compared to him now. _Were we that young once? Was I ever that young? I don’t remember. I do wish Jim would come in from the garden._

"Do you ever miss London, Mr. Holmes?"

He smiles faintly. They like it when he smiles. "London is a young man's city."

 

It had not come without its price, of course, being taken by Jim across the world. London was his very favorite place in the world. It had been since he was a boy. And yet, still, Jim was more. His brother had been convinced it was a plot when they’d left. Every few days, Sherlock would catch sight of another man--clean-cut, always well-dressed, always demure, unassuming. Sherlock would debate with himself for a few minutes, not daring to watch the newest man from anywhere but the corner of his eye as he, this newest interloper read the paper or haggled with a street merchant, always a bit too casually to be believed. They would eventually give themselves away. No matter how clever, they were never cleverer than him. Eventually, brown eyes would fix upon Sherlock and realize that they’d again been found, and again, away they’d slip, sometimes with a flourish, sometimes in deadly seriousness. Jim’s work could be done from anywhere in the world, one place as good as any other. So, as soon as Jim realized it was time, away they would whirl.

One day, still rather early on, the tails had ceased. He’d sent his mother a condolences card from Buenos Aires.

John had been a thought far too painful to consider. He’d thought, foolishly, as a young man, that a good man’s loyalty was inexhaustible. Across from Mary's coffin, though, Sherlock had seen John’s bitterness and resentment, and realized that, no, he’d been incorrect. John Watson had surprised him, not for the first but likely for the last time. Sometimes, he wondered if John was safe, if he’d found something worth living for that wouldn’t kill him instead. Somehow, he doubted it.

 

"Whatever made the two of you come back?"

Sherlock shifts uncomfortably, “You’ll have to ask Jim about that one when he comes in.” Something about her expression widens and then softens. Sherlock hates it for no reason at all.

 

It hadn’t been an easy decision. It was one they had avoided for as long as possible. But eventually, one day in Paris, secretly Sherlock’s very favorite replacement for London, Jim had sat him down.

“We knew it couldn’t be forever,” Jim had started. When had he gotten older? There were deep crow’s feet at the corners of his brown eyes, eyes that still burned the way they always had. There were shots of grey in his hair that Jim had only recently accepted and stopped trying to dye in vain attempts at youth.

Sherlock had stood there stock still, his mind stuck repeating. _Couldn’t be forever. Couldn’t be forever. It’s not forever. Why can’t it be? Stupid, stupid, stupid. It’s not forever. All lives end, all hearts are broken. Nothing’s forever._

His hurt must have been apparent. Jim’s eyes narrowed and he shook his head. “I mean the running, Sherlock. Not… Christ. No.”

Sherlock’s heart quickly knitted itself back together. “Where do we go?”

“I always had quaint notions about the North country…”

Officially, Jim Moriarty didn’t exist, not really. Jim Moriarty’s name meant nothing to the average Brit outside some old mystery stories. _Damn John’s insufferable need to log everything._ But, those in the know, of course, _knew_ better. Jim Moriarty was the name that clung to the  edges of the shadows, it was the name above utterance. Sherlock remembered once, in Spain, Jim had picked up one of those terribly drippy Harry Potter books. He’d gotten a kick out of he-whose-name-slipped-Sherlock’s-recollection. In reflection, Sherlock supposed it all made sense. Jim had always relished his role as a bogeyman.

Sherlock, on the other hand, was a legend, a bit more pomp added to Britain’s bulging circumstances. Now, perhaps, he was beginning to fade into a bit of literary apocrypha diligently added to the musty libraries of canon. No, it had been difficult to come back to all of this nonsense. So much of them, separately and together, was boundless. If Sherlock had ever cared enough, perhaps he’d have put it to words, but it would have been a fruitless endeavor. _However would they understand?_ Jim had always agreed with him. Ordinary people always thought that love was ordered. "It was destiny,” or “written in the stars.” A kismet kiss between personality and timing. Jim had always muttered on about physics and the universe’s inevitable progression towards chaos whenever he was questioned about it.

“The stars are hurdling hundreds of thousands of kilometers an hour towards their own destruction,” Jim would explain, his voice growing soft in the way it only did when they were in bed, several miles of difficult road, several doors and even more blankets between them and the rest of the world. “They explode and combine, and some of the stars we see in the sky aren’t even there anymore. It hardly means what they think it does.”

But that isn’t a story Sherlock could tell. Jim wouldn’t appreciate it. Monsters didn’t laugh at old reruns of Jeremy Kyle. Monsters didn’t murmur in Gaelic as they slept. And, most pointedly, monsters surely don’t love.   

 

She starts again, another question that he’s heard before. “So, what was it like? This relationship between you.”

 _Was? As if it’s changed_. “How is any relationship between two people ever to be explained? It’s not something we’d planned.”

 

Certainly not. It had been raining that day, the very first day. It had been pouring buckets and buckets. John was laid up with a head cold, and Mary had staunchly refused to let him out of the house in that condition. All they needed was for him to go out and catch his death, Mary had said. He’d hung up the phone and watched out the sitting room windows at the dreariness. The changing leaves had been beaten off all the trees and now lay sopping in limp heaps around the storm drains.  

It was then that he had heard the tread on the stairs. Not urgent and heavy, so not Lestrade with a case. Not slow and measured, so not Mycroft here to gloat. Not light and efficient, so not Ms. Hudson here to bring an afternoon treat. Relatively quick, even tread, quiet and light-footed. Sherlock smirked and went to the kitchen.

He heard the door creak open.

“Knock, knock, Sherlock,” Jim said.

“I thought so. Putting the kettle on now,” Sherlock called from the kitchen.

“You should have realized earlier. Tsk, tsk.”

At first it had been strange, these meetings. But after the first, Jim had come more frequently, always when Sherlock’s cases were in a slump, when John was gone or otherwise occupied, and Sherlock was hideously bored. At first, their conversations had been biting, more likely than not one or both of them flying into snarling rages. Eventually, they discovered more common ground, an appreciation of difference. Work slowly but surely was no longer the main topic of discussion. More and more, it was what one or the other of them thought about the world, about some fascinating point of science.   

“Why are you doing this?” Sherlock had asked him one night. Jim had come after dinner, carrying a bottle of good port. They’d drunk several glasses, and somehow, Sherlock’s head had found its way into Jim’s lap. The alcohol had warmed him, and he felt lazy, his tongue loosened.

“You never ask the right questions,” Jim admonished, his hand sifting slowly through Sherlock’s curls.

“Alright, what is the right question, in your opinion?”

“Why I bothered coming back,” Jim supplied.

“Oh… and?” Sherlock tilted his head.

“You make good tea.”

Sherlock snorted. “You lie.”

“Yeah, alright.”

They’d fallen into bed somewhere between the next glass and the sunrise. Jim had been intent, wholly focused on tasting every piece of Sherlock that was revealed during their frantic tearing at one another’s clothes. Sherlock, not pleased to simply lay back and be done to, threw himself into the act with an enthusiasm he’d never known before with others. Teeth, tongues, fingers, and bruises that even days later Sherlock could press and instantly remember the circumstances of each.

 After they were sated, the moment felt contemplative. Jim was curled up on his chest, and Sherlock was stroking his back idly.

“You love me,” he guessed.

“Wrong, Sherlock,” Jim sighed.

“You lie.”

He could feel Jim smiling into his sternum. “Yeah, alright.”

 

The woman seems quiet for a bit before shifting and trying another path instead.

“Did your conflicting work ever cause strife in your relationship?”

“You’re forgetting he did try to kill me once,” Sherlock says wryly.

She smiles weakly. “Just the once?”

“Yes, of course. It wouldn’t have been clever to try it a second time.”

“Was that always a requirement, then? That it be clever?” Her question comes across as unnecessarily bitter.

“Yes, generally. There’s no point in saying that Jim and I are anything other than what you’ve already made your mind up that we are. So yes. Eccentric, singular, individual.”

“So, what else were you then?” She asks bluntly.

“Human beings,” Sherlock answers just as abruptly. “Human beings capable only of finding what happiness we could.”

“And, do you think John Watson ever found happiness?” It was a painful question meant to jar.

“John made his decisions. Regrettably, it became clear that he and I were on different paths.”

The woman snorts. It reminds him of John, as if he’s here dismissing Sherlock instead of this woman.

“If this is something into which you wish to inquire, why don’t you ask John yourself and stop pestering me with your inane questions?” More than anything he wants Jim to come in and finally send this woman on her way. The conversation’s gone on far too long, and he is tired. He is always tired these days.

She looks down, dark blue eyes studying the floor. “Trust me, I would.”

“What do you mean?” He asks, now exacerbated with the whole conversation.

“John Watson died seven months ago. We sent you a notice, tried to ring you. Nothing,” she spat.

It’s then that Sherlock realizes she has no tape recorder, that she’s not written a single thing down.

“You…” He begins, bright eyes locking on her. There had been a hundred hints.

“It’s been a real pleasure, Mr. Holmes,” she states, making it sound like it was anything but. Her hand is clenching and unclenching rhythmically. _Stupid, stupid, stupid._  

“Wait…” he says. It would have never taken him this long before. Dammit, why doesn’t anyone wait for him? Is it payback for a lifetime of making other people chase after him? The world has gone on, and he is no longer running out before the dawn, but instead running from the shadow of night.  

“I really must be going now, Mr. Holmes.”

She is almost out of the sitting room before Sherlock manages to get himself up and wander after her. She’s hastily winding her scarf around her neck before sliding her coat back on. She gives him one more glance after opening the front door. She pulls out her wallet, and leaves a card on the side table.

“Goodbye, Sherlock. It was nice to finally meet you,” she says. Her voice is trembling now. _Where is Jim, and why on Earth hasn’t he come in yet?_   

He watches her retreating back, her hair is just the color of John’s. He looks down at her card.

 

ELIZABETH S. WATSON

Detective Inspector: New Scotland Yard

 

\---------

 

Dad had told her that it was useless. She’d fallen in love with his stories as a little girl. No matter what was happening in her life, there was always room for another story about her father and his brilliant friend. How she’d idolized Sherlock Holmes as a child.  Now, she was so grateful that her father’s stories lived on, even after he was gone from her.

“Never meet your heroes, Liz,” Dad had said even up to the very last time she’d breached the subject of Sherlock Holmes with him. It was always so painful. After everything else, it seemed wretched to add to the man’s troubles.

He’d been right, like he always was. Sherlock Holmes was a frail, small thing now, not the imposing, cutting figure her father had created. His mind was addled, his speech slow. It had been agonizing watching him.  

Some had said they were lovers, her father and Mr. Holmes.

“Bollocks,” Dad had said. “There was only ever one person in Sherlock’s life worth all that trouble, and it certainly wasn’t me.”

As she pulled out from the drive, she paused at the garden. It’s late autumn now, and all the flowers had gone. The trees had all shed their leaves. All that was left were a few tobacco colored remnants at the foot of the headstone.

 

JAMES ANDREW MORIARTY

11 April 1976- 6 Jan. 2052


End file.
